French photo
artists Pierre and Gilles love dressing their models up as
saints and sailors, pharaohs and fishermen. Their favorite
props include fake teardrops, plastic daisies, fluffy
clouds, and angel wings.
The overall
effect might be called whimsical, strange, or enchanting.
But please, please don't dismiss it as kitsch, the
artists ask.
''That's so
simplistic,'' Gilles told the Associated Press in an
interview. ''We're not interested in good taste or bad
taste. It's beyond that."
The Pierre and
Gilles retrospective this summer at the Jeu de Paume
gallery in Paris is a photo album of their career together,
starting with their early collaborations from three
decades ago, when they met at the opening of designer
Kenzo's boutique in Paris and fell in love.
The artists, who
generally go by their first names, also became an
inseparable artistic duo, with Pierre Commoy shooting the
pictures and Gilles Blanchard painting onto them.
Their famous
subjects include Mick Jagger, Iggy Pop, Naomi Campbell and
Catherine Deneuve -- and they say they had to turn
down Michael Jackson because his project idea would
have been too time-consuming. Countless ads and music
videos riff on their aesthetic.
Take REM's video
for Losing My Religion. With its parade of
martyred saints and Hindu deities against a sky-blue
backdrop, it's a clear homage to Pierre and Gilles.
The artists say
they're often asked if they did the ad for Jean Paul
Gaultier's perfume Le Male, featuring a chiseled sailor.
They didn't -- but they did shoot a famous
picture of Gaultier in a striped sailor sweater.
The show at the
Jeu de Paume is full of sexy sailors and serene saints
-- not to mention toreadors, hustlers, and
cowboys. There are many self-portraits, with the
artists posing as astronauts, chiefs of state, and as
bride and groom. Their aesthetic borrows from art high and
low, from Renaissance paintings as well as gay
pinups, religious icons, and comic books.
''Everything is
important, lightheartedness as well as seriousness,''
Pierre said. ''It's interesting to put them on the same
level, because life is like that.''
That blend often
has a childlike naivete. Many people will assume that
innocence must be ironic -- the artists say it's not.
At the interview at the gallery's cafe, when fans
interrupted to ask the pair for autographs, they
patiently signed and sketched a tiny bird for each one.
''Naive? I hope
we're still naive!'' Gilles said. ''I think you need to
be, to be an artist.''
That said, their
work is definitely not G-rated: Naked male bodies
abound. ''Le Petit Jardinier'' (The Little Gardener) shows a
photo of a lean gardener in a straw hat with a daisy
between his teeth, watering his flowers with a stream
of urine.
By contrast,
another portrait shows a porcelain-skinned Madonna in a
velvet crown, tears streaming from her eyes, her delicate
hands as carefully posed as an icon's.
The artists say
the sentiment in their religious portraits is sincere.
While the flesh-baring sensuality of their martyred saints
may shock some, they say they get letters from Roman
Catholic fans and have even been offered to show their
work in a church.
Teary eyes figure
frequently in their work --Pierre even has a blue
teardrop tattooed onto his cheek. The tinge of sadness in
their photos is what keeps them from being too glossy
and frivolous.
''There is always
a melancholy in eyes, where you see a little humility
or sadness,'' Gilles said.
Their work has
grown deeper, perhaps darker, over the years. Now both in
their 50s, they have lost many friends to AIDS. One portrait
in the gallery depicts a friend who recently committed
suicide, and the gallery puts fresh flowers next to
the portrait every day.
''We have seen
such difficult things. AIDS was horrible, horrible, and
there are still many people around us who live with
illness,'' Gilles said. ''It's not easy. We have seen
that life is cruel and hard.''
Perhaps that
explains their attraction to a shiny, soothing fantasy
world. Their art ''lets us imagine the possibility of
another humankind,'' art critic Paul Ardenne wrote in
an introduction to the book that accompanies the
exhibit. ''A humankind in which the ugly have become
beautiful, where martyrdom would be without pain, where
horror would be bearable, if not pretty, where death
would not kill, where love reigns supreme.''
''Pierre et
Gilles, double jeu'' runs at Pars' Jeu de Paume gallery
through Sept. 23. (Angela Doland, AP)
